VANCOUVER — Amanda Todd is not the only Canadian victim of a suspect arrested in the Netherlands who blackmailed her into exposing herself in front of a webcam, says Royal Canadian Mounted Police Insp. Paulette Freill.
Canadian police confirmed Thursday an arrest has been made in the Netherlands in the case of the 15-year-old who later committed suicide after detailing her harassment on a YouTube video watched by millions around the world.
Freill said a suspect has been arrested in the Netherlands and charged with extortion, luring and criminal harassment and possession of child pornography for the purpose of distribution. The 35-year-old man has been identified under Dutch privacy laws only as “Aydin C.”
Canadian police said they would seek extradition.
Freill says all the charges are related to incidents alleged to have happened between Jan. 1, 2010, and Oct. 10, 2012 — the same day Todd died.

Freill declined to release specifics of the case but said there were other victims in Canada and internationally. Dutch prosecutors said the man is suspected of blackmailing girls in the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands.
Amanda Todd brought the problem of cyber bullying to mainstream attention in Canada after she posted a video on YouTube in which she told her story with handwritten signs, describing how she was lured by a stranger to expose her breasts on a webcam.
The picture ended up on a Facebook page made by the stranger, to which her friends were added.
She was repeatedly bullied, despite changing schools, before finally killing herself weeks after posting the video. It has now been viewed more than 17 million times.
“This is truly a day we have been waiting for,” said Carol Todd, Amanda’s mother. She wiped away tears as she thanked police.

Dutch prosecutors said they filed indecent assault and child pornography charges against the man. Lawyer Christian van Dijk earlier confirmed to The Associated Press that one of the charges against his client involved a 15-year-old girl from British Columbia.
Aydin C., who has dual Dutch and Turkish nationality, has been in detention since he was arrested in January in a vacation house the town of Oisterwijk. He lived alone, and has no wife or children.
Prosecutors first publicized his case after a preliminary hearing Wednesday at which his detention was extended for three months.
“The suspicions against the man are that he approached underage girls via the Internet and then seduced them into performing sexual acts in front of a webcam,” prosecutors said in a statement.
“He is suspected of subsequently pressurizing them to participate in making new material.”
They noted Aydin C. is also thought to have blackmailed adult men in a somewhat similar way, by convincing them that he was an underage boy, convincing them to perform sexual acts on camera, and then threatening to turn the images over to the police.

National prosecution spokesman Paul van der Zande said Aydin C. must first go through his Dutch legal process before he can be extradited to face separate charges in Canada.
Lawyer Van Dijk said he doesn’t believe prosecutors have sufficient evidence to convict his client, and said that even if there is evidence of unlawful activity on his computer, it may have been hacked.
“Prosecutors seem to think they have a big fish here, but if I see the evidence, it’s not much,” he said. “Lots of references to IP addresses and such.”
Dutch prosecutors said they were co-operating with other national authorities, including the British.
Van Dijk said U.S. and Norwegian authorities are also involved in the case.
He said so far Aydin C. hasn’t entered any plea.
“He’s exercising his right to remain silent.”
The man from Oisterwijk, a Dutch town near Tilburg, remains in police custody. He appeared before a court in Amsterdam on Wednesday to face charges of harassment and extortion. Todd has reportedly been identified as one of his victims.

On Oct. 10, 2012, Todd was found dead in a Port Coquitlam, B.C., home, five weeks after she posted a video on YouTube detailing how she was harassed online and bullied. The video has since been viewed more than 17 million times.

Dutch media are reporting the suspect was living in a trailer park when he was arrested in January, and is alleged to have lured young victims to do sexual things in front of their webcams.

A government spokesperson in the Netherlands said the victims hailed from different places, including the Netherlands, Great Britain and the U.S., and that there could be as many as 40 victims.

The media report suggested the victims may also include young boys, and that the suspect allegedly blackmailed victims by demanding money in return for not showing others the compromising photos.

Warning: Graphic content in the last moments of this video

The case is based on “material” that was seized by police from the suspect, Omroep Brabant reported.

When the suspect appeared in court in Amsterdam on Wednesday, it was the first time details of his arrest became public, the radio station reported. It was kept quiet because of the sensitivity of the case.

In an interview with Postmedia News on Thursday, van Dijk, confirmed that his client had been charged with suspected extortion via webcam of a 15-year-old girl from British Columbia.

He added his client faced a total of nine charges, and that he was suspected of having similar interactions with others online.

“It’s not only one girl, it’s a lot of girls,” said van Dijk, of the firm Pieters Advocaten.

The lawyer identified the man, who was Dutch-born, as a dual citizen of the Netherlands and Turkey who was unmarried and had no children. He would not share whether his client had a prior criminal record.

Van Dijk said that he believed his client was “very clever but also very decent and a good man. He is not a bad person.”

He confirmed police had seized a computer and router from his client’s home.

However, he said the home would have been easy to break into, and investigators need to prove his client was actually associated with the IP addresses involved and is not himself a victim of hacking.

Van Dijk suggested that his client may have been subject to “spoofing,” where a hacker copies an address and uses it as their own.

“You make it your own and download criminal content, that is my opinion what is happening in this case,” van Dijk said.

I can never get that photo back

Todd’s death sparked global media coverage, inspired multiple vigils and brought the issue of cyber-bullying to the forefront.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark expressed her condolences to Todd’s family at the time and spoke out about the dangers of bullying.

In a black-and-white, nine-minute video posted on Sept. 7, 2012, the 15-year-old doesn’t speak, but holds up a series of white pieces of paper with brief sentences in black marker.

On the papers, the teen explains that as a Grade 7 student, she was lured by an unidentified male to expose her breasts via webcam.

One year later, Todd said she got a message from him on Facebook, though she didn’t know how he knew her name or where to find her.

Todd’s notes said the man ordered her to “put on a show for me,” or he would send around the webcam pictures. Todd said he knew her address, her school, her friends and her family.

She said she was later alerted by police that he had followed through with the threat.

“I then got really sick,” she wrote.

She noted she was plunged into anxiety, major depression, drugs and alcohol. But the bullying didn’t stop.

She said the man created a Facebook page with a list of her friends and school.

“My boobs were his profile picture,” she wrote. “I can never get that photo back. It’s out there forever.”

Todd wrote that she eventually changed schools and things were better for a while. But she said an encounter with another girl’s boyfriend started the bullying again, this time worse. It escalated into a physical attack in which she said she was beaten and left in a ditch until her father found her.

She said she tried to kill herself twice, including once by drinking bleach, and constantly cut herself.

Almost Done!

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.

Postmedia wants to improve your reading experience as well as share the best deals and promotions from our advertisers with you. The information below will be used to optimize the content and make ads across the network more relevant to you. You can always change the information you share with us by editing your profile.

By clicking "Create Account", I hearby grant permission to Postmedia to use my account information to create my account.

I also accept and agree to be bound by Postmedia's Terms and Conditions with respect to my use of the Site and I have read and understand Postmedia's Privacy Statement. I consent to the collection, use, maintenance, and disclosure of my information in accordance with the Postmedia's Privacy Policy.